Kensuke Sasaki

Kensuke Sasaki (Japanese: 佐々木 健介, Sasaki Kensuke; born August 4, 1966) is a Japanese retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his numerous runs in the top three Japanese wrestling promotions; New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), and Pro Wrestling Noah. He was the founder and owner of the now-defunct wrestling promotion Diamond Ring, which was also named Kensuke Office.

Sasaki is the first of five men ever to hold all three of puroresu's major heavyweight titles (the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship, and the GHC Heavyweight Championship), the others being Yoshihiro Takayama, Keiji Muto, Satoshi Kojima, and Yuji Nagata - totaling seven world championship reigns. Sasaki also competed in MMA and won both fights by submission, remaining undefeated in mixed martial arts competition.

Sasaki debuted in Riki Choshu's Japan Pro-Wrestling, a satellite of All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), in February 1986. On February 16, 1986, he made his debut against Shinji Sasazaki in a losing effort. Shortly afterwards, Sasaki became a regular in AJPW for over a year.

He defected to rival promotion New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), following Choshu, who returned to NJPW in 1987. During his time with NJPW, Sasaki teamed up with the likes of Osamu Matsuda and Kenichi Oya.

In January 1989, Sasaki embarked on an excursion to North America. He first started wrestling there in Puerto Rico in World Wrestling Council (WWC), where he held his very first championship, the WWC Caribbean Tag Team Championship, with Mr. Pogo twice between January 14, 1989, and April 1, 1989.

He also wrestled for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in Canada, where he wrestled under the name Benkei Sasaki and was trained by Hart in the Hart Dungeon. During his time in Canada, he won the Stampede International Tag Team Championship in August 1989, with All Japan loyalist Sumo Hara.

He also wrestled for Otto Wanz's Catch Wrestling Association (CWA) in tours of Austria and Germany under the name Kendo Sasaki from October to December 1989.

In December 1989, Stampede Wrestling closed its doors, and Sasaki wrestled for the Canadian National Wrestling Alliance (CNWA), until March 1990 when he was fired by Ed Whalen for kicking Mike Lozanski too stiff.^{[clarification needed][citation needed]}